The Sycamores 



Sycamore, Buttonwood, American Plane Tree (Plata- 

 nus occidentalis, Linn.) A large, stately tree, 75 to 150 feet high, 

 with tall trunk and loose, broad head and mottled green and white 

 limbs. Bark dark reddish brown on trunk, breaking into small 

 scaly plates; smooth and thin on branches, olive green, flaking 

 off in irregular plates, exposing whitish inner bark. Wood light 

 reddish brown, hard, heavy, with prominent satiny pith rays. 

 Buds conical, with hood-like scales, covered by hollow base of leaf 

 stalk, and encircled by a single leaf scar. Leaves deciduous, alter- 

 nate, simple, 5 to 6 inches long, 7 to 9 inches broad, 3 to 5 lobed, 

 with broad, shallow sinuses and wavy-toothed lobes; yellow green 

 abovp, paler beneath, and fuzzy on veins; yellow in autumn and 

 papery; petiole short, with hollow, dilated base; stipules, a sheath, 

 tubular, flaring into ruffle-like border. Flowers, May, monoecious, 

 in globular heads on flexible stems; staminate axillary, deep red; 

 pistillate terminal, pale green tinged with red, with long stems. 

 Fruit, dry pendulous balls, solitary or rarely two on a single pedun- 

 cle, I inch in diameter, made of a close-set, pointed akenes. Pre- 

 ferred habitat, borders of streams and rich bottom lands. 

 Distribution, southern Maine to north shore of Lake Ontario; 

 west to Minnesota and Nebraska; south to Florida and 

 Texas. Uses: Excellent shade and ornamental tree, especi- 

 ally in cities and towns. Wood is used for furniture and 

 inside woodwork of houses; also for butchers' blocks and 

 tobacco boxes. 



The "hoary antlered sycamore" in our damp woods is a tree 

 that the stranger will never forget after his first introduction to it. 

 There is only this one native tree with such strange, crazy patch- 

 work on its branches. These patterns in dull olives and 

 dingy white show themselves from any reasonable distance in 

 winter, and the grey balls dangling from the twigs are another sure 

 means of identification. In the summertime the thickest foliage 

 never quite conceals the scarred trunk and excoriated branches, 

 splotched as if with whitewash to the utmost twigs. Moulting is 

 a continuous performance during the buttonwoods' growing sea- 

 son. Even in winter flakes of bark may be picked up on the snow 

 blanket that protects the roots. This tree seems utterly lacking 

 in the power to stretch its bark fibres and fill in the chinks to fit 

 the growing limbs. Instead, with the first rift sycamore bark 

 loosens, separates, and lets go, leaving only the inner layers 



279 



